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Many everyday decisions are made without full examination of all available options, and, as a result, the best available option may be missed. We develop a search-theoretic choice experiment to study the impact of incomplete consideration on the quality of choices. We find that many decisions can be understood using the satisficing model of Herbert Simon (1955): most subjects search sequentially, stopping when a "satisficing" level of reservation utility is realized. We find that reservation utilities and search order respond systematically to changes in the decision making environment. (JEL D03, D12, D83)

"Satisficing in Political Decision Making" published on by Oxford University Press.

Abstract
In this paper, we consider the role of personality as a component of motivation in promoting or inhibiting the tendency to exhibit the satisficing response styles of midpoint, straightlining, and Don't Know responding. We assess whether respondents who are low on the Conscientiousness and Agreeableness dimensions of the Big Five Personality Inventory are more likely to exhibit these satisficing response styles. We find large effects of these personality dimensions on the propensity to satisfice in both face-to-face and self-administration modes and in probability and nonprobability samples. People who score high on Conscientiousness and Agreeableness were less likely to be in the top decile of straightlining and midpoint distributions. The findings for Don't Know responding were weaker and only significant for Conscientiousness in the nonprobability sample. We also find large effects across all satisficing indicators for a direct measure of cognitive ability, where existing studies have mostly relied on proxy measures of ability such as educational attainment. Sensitivity analysis suggests the personality effects are likely to be causal in nature.

Inhalt -- 1 Einleitung -- 1.1 Hintergrund und Relevanz des Themas -- 1.2 Fragestellungen -- 1.3 Eingrenzung des Untersuchungsgegenstands -- 1.4 Aufbau und Gliederung -- 2 Satisficing in Befragungen: Theorie und Forschungsstand -- 2.1 Die Satisficing-Theorie -- 2.1.1 Optimizing und Satisficing als Antwortstrategien -- 2.1.2 Die Einflussgrößen in der Wahl der Antwortstrategie -- 2.1.3 Die Antworteffekte von Satisficing -- 2.2 Die Messung von Satisficing -- 2.3 Die Erklärung von Satisficing: Empirische Evidenz und offene Fragen -- 2.4 Die Erklärung von Satisficing: Stabilität und Variabilität in der Wahl der Antwortstrategie -- 3 Die Messung von Satisficing -- 3.1 Die Modellierung der Antwortstrategie als latente Variable -- 3.2 Methodik -- 3.2.1 Analyseverfahren -- 3.2.2 Daten -- 3.3 Operationalisierung der Indikatoren für Satisficing -- 3.3.1 Straightlining -- 3.3.2 Mittelkategorie-Antworten -- 3.3.3 "Weiß nicht"-Antworten -- 3.3.4 Nichtsubstantielle Antworten auf eine kognitiv fordernde offene Frage -- 3.3.5 Speeding -- 3.4 Ergebnisse -- 3.5 Zusammenfassung und Diskussion -- 4 Die Erklärung von Satisficing -- 4.1 Die Einflussgrößen von Satisficing -- 4.1.1 Schwierigkeit der Aufgabe -- 4.1.2 Fähigkeiten -- 4.1.3 Motivation -- 4.1.4 Bedeutung und Zusammenwirken der Einflussgrößen von Satisficing -- 4.2 Methodik -- 4.2.1 Daten -- 4.2.2 Analyseverfahren -- 4.2.3 Operationalisierung der Einflussgrößen von Satisficing -- 4.3 Ergebnisse -- 4.3.1 Effekte der Schwierigkeit der Aufgabe -- 4.3.2 Effekte der Fähigkeiten -- 4.3.3 Effekte der Motivation -- 4.3.4 Die relative Bedeutung der Einflussgrößen von Satisficing -- 4.3.5 Das Zusammenwirken der Einflussgrößen von Satisficing -- 4.4 Zusammenfassung und Diskussion -- 5 Intra-individuelle Stabilität und Variabilität in der Wahl der Antwortstrategie

AbstractA new theoretical perspective proposes that various survey response patterns occur partly because respondents shortcut the cognitive processes necessary for generating optimal answers and that these shortcuts are directed by cues in the questions.

In dieser empirischen Studie arbeitet Dr. Joss Roßmann die Theorie und den aktuellen Forschungsstand zu Satisficing in Befragungen umfassend auf und präsentiert neben einem innovativen Modellierungsansatz eine Vielzahl von neuen Erkenntnissen, wie das Zusammenwirken der Schwierigkeit der Beantwortung von Fragen, der Motivation und der Fähigkeiten von Umfrageteilnehmern die Wahl ihrer Antwortstrategie erklären. Abschließend wird die Bedeutung der Befunde für die Theorie und Praxis der Umfrageforschung herausgearbeitet und es werden Implikationen für die Vermeidung und Behandlung von Satisficing in Befragungen aufgezeigt und diskutiert. Der Inhalt Theorie und Forschungsstand • Die Messung von Satisficing • Die Erklärung von Satisficing • Intra-individuelle Stabilität und Variabilität in der Wahl der Antwortstrategie • Fazit und Ausblick Die Zielgruppe Wissenschaftler und Praktiker in der Umfrageforschung Der Autor Dr. Joss Roßmann ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter bei GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften

One of the best known ideas in the study of bounded rationality is Simon's satisficing; yet we still lack a standard formalization of the heuristic and its implications. We propose a mathematical model of satisficing which explicitly represents agents' aspirations and which explores both single-person and multi-player contexts. The model shows that satisficing has a signature performance-profile in both contexts: (1) it can induce optimal long-run behavior in one class of problems but not in the complementary class; and (2) in the latter, it generates behavior that is sensible but not optimal. The model also yields empirically testable predictions: in certain bandit-problems it pins down the limiting probabilities of each arm's use, and it provides an ordering of the arms' dynamical use-probabilities as well.

Limited information, time, or capacity may prevent customers from acting as utility maximizers when making purchase decisions. Rather, they would settle for a good enough option; that is, they stop searching and make a purchase as soon as they find an acceptable alternative. We incorporate this behavior in an assortment-optimization problem. Whereas different approaches to modeling customer choice are adopted in assortment planning, all assume customers are utility maximizers. Our work bridges the research streams of assortment planning and bounded rationality, particularly satisficing behavior. In addition, we define a limit for the search budget of customers, in which customers leave without purchase after examining a certain number of items. This assumption brings a new perspective to the assortment-planning literature, enabling us to capture the choice-overload effect. We prove that the firm's problem of finding the optimal assortment is NP-hard. We further establish certain structural properties of the optimal decision, which allows us to reformulate the model as a mixed-integer program. We analytically derive a tight upper bound on the percentage loss in the firm's expected profit for small instances when it assumes incorrectly that customers are utility maximizers. For larger instances, we take a numerical approach to determine the loss. Our results indicate that firms offering low-involvement products, among those dealing with satisficing customers, are more likely to face substantial profit loss if they ignore this behavior. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2022.0063 .